Certain vehicles (e.g., powered vehicles or vehicle consists) include communication systems that periodically obtain measurements related to the health, operations, or control of the vehicle. For example, locomotives in a rail vehicle consist (“consist” referring to a group of vehicles linked to travel together along a route, including possible coordinated control by one or more wired and/or wireless connections) may include communication systems that periodically receive measurements related to operations of the locomotive, such as speed, horsepower, temperature, brake pressure measurements, and the like. These measurements represent data parameters of the vehicle, and the values of the data parameters may periodically change. For example, measurements of speed of a traction motor may be a first data parameter, measurements of brake pressures may be a second data parameter, and so on.
The values of the data parameters may be requested and used by computerized services or applications running on the vehicle and/or running off-board the vehicle. These services or applications perform various functions based on the data parameters. For example, the services or applications may control tractive operations and/or braking operations of the vehicle, monitor performance of the vehicle over time, record events of the vehicle, and the like. The systems that acquire the data parameters and that are native to the vehicle, such as the systems that are initially installed in the vehicle, may use a communication protocol to form and communicate data messages that include the values of the data parameters. Other services or applications may use a different communication protocol that uses a different format to communicate and/or use the data messages that include the data parameters.
The different protocols used to communicate with the various systems, services, and applications can require different communication configurations to be used. For example, in order for a single device to communicate with systems, services, and/or applications using different communication protocols, the single device may need to have different communication configurations stored thereon. The communication configurations can dictate the rules and criteria used for communicating with the systems, services, and/or applications according to the different protocols.
In some known vehicles, in order to allow for communication between a device and the systems, services, and/or applications that use different protocols to communicate, the various communication configurations must be previously stored on-board the device and the device must be manually configured to communicate with the systems, services, and/or applications. If one or more systems, services, or applications are changed or swapped out, the configuration of the device may need to be manually re-configured to allow for communication between the device and a new system, service, or application that uses a different protocol.
A need exists for a system and method that allows for different systems, services, applications, and the like in a vehicle and using different communication protocols to communicate with a device without requiring the manual re-configuration of the device each time a system, service, application, and the like, using a different communication protocol, is added to the vehicle.